Transit Access for Americans: A Proposal for the Next Stage of Implementing the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990

Formany Americans with disabilities, transit is the only path to real opportunities. An open society for them depends upon increased transit services for all Americans. Many transit professionals, however, daunted by transit needs and worn down by their critics, wallow in cost issues, ignoring transit's real value to their communities. The key to improvement is to measure transit benefits that are intuitively obvious to most taxpayers. Empirically, accessible transit proves to be the most valuable transit to passengers and to other taxpayers as well.     

Commercial developments and their impact on maritime heritage: the Northern Ireland experience

This paper refers to the body of international, national and regional legislation that exists to protect submerged cultural heritage sites. It advocates the use of the consultation process available through current legislation to protect submerged sites through preservation or through record by archaeological mitigation. It reviews the main types of commercial seabed developments and opens discussion on the appropriate archaeological response.     

The Failure of Citizens’s Initiated Referenda Proposals in Australia: New Directions for Popular Participation?

Australia has been a leading proponent of direct democracy since the turn of the century because of the provision for referenda in the Australian Constitution. However, the experiment has progressed little further. Bills for citizens’s initiated referenda have been introduced across the Australian parliaments. Not one has been passed, despite the concept being supported at different times by all sides of politics. This article examines why these proposals have failed. It also evaluates other means of reinvigorating popular participation. Widespread disillusionment with the political system indicates that there is a genuine need to increase community involvement in the political process.     

The regional impact of the channel tunnel: Qualitative and quantitative analysis

The paper addresses the question of how different types of regions mill be affected by the development of a major new transport infrastructure such as the Channel Tunnel. It summarizes a study on the regional impacts of the Channel Tunnel throughout the European Union (EU). The research design combined qualitative methods of futures exploration employing 13 regional case studies with quantitative forecasting techniques using the MEPLAN transport and economic model. The paper presents the methodology and major results of the two approaches with respect to the impacts of the Channel Tunnel on transport flows and regional development in Europe and draws conclusions for transport and regional policy of the EU. The paper demonstrates that the removal of a bottleneck like the Channel Tunnel does not necessarily induce economic gains in all adjacent regions. Much more important for regional economic development than the reduction of transport costs are the image to be a region well integrated into the European high‐speed transport network and an active political response of the region to take advantage of opportunities like the Channel Tunnel.